2014 - Team Ratings After Round 11

Hawthorn, for the third game in a row - and despite eventually prevailing over the Giants, however narrowly - this week dropped Rating Points (RPs) on both the ChiPS and the MARS Systems. That still leaves the Hawks over 8 RPs clear at the top on the ChiPS Ladder - but the team in second is the Swans who gained 6 RPs this week and who've also squirreled 15 RPs over the past five rounds. The Hawks should feel anything but comfortable about their number 1 ranking.

That 6 RP gain catapulted the Swans up 3 places for the round, making them, along with the Pies (up 2), the only teams to climb multiple places on ChiPS on the strength of Round 11 performances. Other teams to rise, though by only a single place, were the Crows, Dons, Dees and Lions. The biggest falls were recorded by the Cats, down 3 places, and the Saints, down 2, while Port Adelaide, Fremantle, Richmond and West Coast each fell by a solitary place.

Sydney have now gained RPs in each of their last 6 games. No other team has a string of RP gains exceeding 2 games. Prior to this week the Suns had constructed their own 5-game streak of RP accumulation, but this ended with their loss to the Crows.

After Round 11 results, a sizeable Ratings gap has formed on ChiPS between the Roos in 7th (1,013.0) and the Crows in 8th (1,004.9) - a gap mirrored in MARS Ratings where it's of a similar magnitude.

Generally, the magnitude of the difference between ChiPS' and MARS' Ratings is proportional to the absolute difference between a team's Rating and that of an average team (ie 1,000), the notable exceptions being the Pies, Roos, Power and Saints, for each of which, ChiPS and MARS Ratings are closer than this rule would suggest. 

Moving next to the team rankings for all the MatterOfStats Rating Systems, we see that it's Colley that is, still, the outlier for a number of teams.

Colley has, for example, rewarded the Lions and punished the Suns and Hawks more than most for their more recent wins and losses.

Other notable differences in this chart are the relative responses of the Systems to the Cats' loss to the Swans, which has led all but Colley to significantly reassess the Cats' abilities, and the overall variability in the Tigers' and the Eagles' Rankings.

ODM now sees the following teams as having significantly better Offence than Defence: Carlton, Gold Coast, GWS, Hawthorn and Port Adelaide. It also sees the following teams as, conversely, having significantly better Defence than Offence: Essendon, Fremantle, Kangaroos, Melbourne and West Coast.

Defensively, the big improvers this week were Brisbane, Essendon and Sydney, while the teams to most decline were Geelong and GWS. Offensively, the largest improvers were Collingwood, Gold Coast and the Kangaroos, while the largest decline was attributed to Fremantle.

Lastly, if we look at the simple predictive accuracy of the various Rating Systems, we find that:

  • ChiPS remains 3 tips clear of MARS
  • Massey is now 7 games behind MARS, and down 1 on the basis of this week's results
  • ODM is 11 games behind MARS, also down 1
  • Colley remains 11 games behind MARS

Looking solely at the Offensive and Defensive components of ODM, we also see that:

  • Tips using only the Defensive component have been right 7 times fewer than tips using MARS, and
  • Tips using only the Offensive component have been right 10 times fewer than tips using MARS, which is 2 times fewer than at the commencement of Round 11.